A/N : Ah… if I owned Sucker Punch, I'd be Zach Snyder.

Babydoll strained and stretched, feeling along underneath the drawer, her fingers grazing the surface, desperately reaching for the knife, the 3rd item they had needed. Even as she did this, Blue's husky voice breathed in her ear, "What? What? Did you lose your fight? Hmm?"

AT last! She grasped the handle, as she drew it out she spoke, strength flooding her veins,

"No. I just found it." At this she wrenched the knife free, and drove it into Blue's neck, reveling in the gasp he let out, and jumped away from her, hand leaping to his neck, the blood flowing like water, between his fingers, he looked at her in shock as she put her foot to his chest,

"You'll never have me." She shoved him away, and he hit the wall, and fell silent.

She grabbed the key from his neck, and then retrieved the lighter and map from beneath the drawer, gave him a last glance, and ran from the room.

Blue laid there in shock, Babydoll had just stabbed him! Was he dying? He tried to shout out, but couldn't find his voice. He heard footsteps, it was C.J. "Hurry you idiot! It was Babydoll, she got my key, and had the photocopy of my map!" he found his voice, yelling hoarsely to C.J. happy to see shock cross his features,

"Yes sir!" he shouted for the other bouncer, Danforth, and repeated what Blue had said. Danforth nodded and ran after Babydoll. C.J. helped Blue to his feet, blood still escaping the wound.

"Get me to a doctor you fool!" he said angrily, feeling a bit weak from blood loss, and C.J. helped him out the door.

Babydoll ran to the supply closet, her hands shaking as she fitted the key into the lock, and she pulled the door open,

Sweet Pea looked up, eyes still wet with tears for Rocket, and seeing Babydoll, she spoke quickly,

"What's happened? Where-?" Babydoll interrupted her,

"It's just us now, we've got to hurry." She pulled Sweet Pea to her feet, grabbed a bottle of cleaning fluid, stuck a cloth into it, and quickly held the lighter to it, then threw it back into the closet, and flames started growing.

"C'mon, let's get out of here." Babydoll said, shaking Sweet Pea from her reverie.

They ran down the hall, unlocked the secondary gate, and crouched, waiting for the fire alarm to unlock the main door.

"Wait for it…" whispered Babydoll,

C.J. hurried down the hall, hoping he was going the direction Babydoll had taken, when the supply closet caught his eye, it was ON FIRE! He rushed to grab the fire extinguisher, and snapped the fire alarm down. The alarm began sounding, and he hurried to put out the fire, but it was too out of control, thanks to all the crazy combination of cleaning chemicals and supplies inside.

The fire alarms began sounding, and the Main door buzzed, the lock sliding back, and Babydoll and Sweet Pea hurriedly crawled past the guard's desk, and ran for the outer door. They got outside and turned to the courtyard. There were about 6 men pacing around, and talking.

Babydoll and Sweet Pea crouched down behind the planter, "Dammit!" swore Babydoll,

"We did everything right! How can this be?" said Sweet Pea in a hushed voice.

"Map, fire, knife, key, and one thing more. One thing more….it's me. Of course it's me." Babydoll murmured softly.

"What are you talking about? You? There is no fifth item!" Sweet Pea protested.

"No, it's me, it makes sense. You've always been the strongest. You're only one of us who could have made it out there. You escaping, you living for all of us, that's how we win. It's got to be you. I'll go out there and distract the guards, and you have to run." She finished, her voice growing strong near the end.

"What? No!" Sweet Pea grabbed her wrist, but Babydoll shook her off and held her hand, putting the key in it, and folded it closed. "Yes, go. Go home; tell your mother what Rocket said. Live life, fall in love. Go." She rose up, and walked out into the courtyard, staring the first man down.

"Hey baby where you going?" the first said,

"You deaf or somethin'?" said the second,

She walked up to the first and kicked him in the groin. She saw Sweet Pea go out the gate and looked at her; Babydoll blinked, and looked back to the man.

She saw his fist coming towards her, and then there was darkness.

Sweet Pea closed the gate quietly, looked back at Babydoll one last time, memorizing her face, and then turned and ran, ran for Rocket, ran for Amber, for Blondie, and for Babydoll. She ran and never looked back.

Someone was touching her face with a wet cloth. Babydoll opened her eyes, 'Ouch.' The left side of her face hurt like a freight train had hit it. That was pretty close to the truth. The thugs who had attacked her had lost at their poker game with the High Roller and decided to take it out on her. Danforth had found her, taken care of the thugs, and brought her straight to room #5. The High Roller had been waiting there nearly 10 minutes, but he took one look at Babydoll, who lay crumpled in Danforth's arms, and had sent for his two companions, who quickly began nursing Babydoll's various cuts and bruises. Luckily that had been all the injury she had suffered.

She sat up gingerly, and looked around; the room was mostly a deep red, with stained glass windows and gold lamps. "Ah. There you are. You gave us quite a scare you know." a deep voice intoned.

She glanced over to see the High Roller, a handsome dark haired man, wearing a white suit, and holding a half empty glass of what appeared to be whiskey.

"Where am I?" Babydoll asked quietly.

"You're safe, for now." He said, looking carefully at her, trying to reassure her with just a look. She sat up further, and eyed the two women dressed in white, they were the ones she'd felt dabbing at her face, and they seemed to have removed her stockings and shoes.

"I don't know how to put this delicately, so I will spare you the insult of being vague, but you and I are supposed to…" he broke off, watching her face, and she finished the sentence for him.

"Screw? Fuck? There isn't really a nice way to put it you know. It's my duty, or my job." She said boldly.

He shook his head quickly, "That's not the way I would have put it actually. I have no intention of simply forcing you into anything, I can think of nothing more offensive, especially after what you just went through." He stood, and the two ladies in white removed his coat, and after a nod from him, departed and shut the door.

He walked over to her, and sat down at the very foot of the bed, keeping as far away as possible she supposed.

"I have indeed paid a small fortune to get you in this gilded cage, as it were, but-"

She interrupted him, "I don't care what you paid, I'm not going to lie to you, because you seem really nice, but..." at this, it was his turn to interrupt her; he leaned forward and gently placed a finger to her lips, stopping her. They felt like silk, and he resisted the urge to touch her further, wanting to say what he knew she needed to hear.

"I am what you would call the man who has everything, yet I lack the one thing money can't buy." He said gently.

Babydoll grasped his hand, noticing how warm it felt, and she impulsively kissed it, and set it back on his knee.

"Love?" she said coyly.

He smiled, and shook his head slowly, "Close, but truth is more accurate. I seek a moment of truth, in this world of lies. I seek that rare glimpse of what life could be like, if everyone around me stopped acting. The only person that can give me that is an authentic being, a non-actor. That person is you. Whatever you may be, I know you're not fake." At this he sat up and moved closer to her, placing a hand on her cheek.

She stilled under his hand, simply relishing the feeling of it. He brushed her white blond bangs out of her face, and she looked up into his eyes, as he spoke again, "I don't want this to be me taking you by force, I want you to give to me willingly, by your choice, for one moment, a moment of truth, that I can only know if you choose this. In you, there exists a spark of truth, and that you, the real you, I will never know, but that is precisely what I want. Rather than taking you by force, I want this to be simply as a man and a woman." She covered his hand with her own, smaller one, and spoke quietly, "I do. I choose this. Don't worry about hurting me."

He sighed, and closed his eyes briefly, then looked back at her, "For such a gem, I shall give as well. I can give you freedom. Pure and total freedom. Freedom from the drudgery of everyday life, freedom as abstract ideal. Freedom from loss, from sadness. Freedom from pain, from regret. Freedom from guilt, the freedom to be happy."

He leaned forward and just barely touched his lips to hers. Babydoll sighed, and pressed into him, kissing him strongly, and pulling his tie off in one move. He murmured words of encouragement, and she slowly unbuttoned his shirt, and put her arms around his neck, she leaned back and pulled him with her, and began to close her eyes, he spoke again,

"Don't close your eyes; I need you to look at me. The freedom to love." He said, almost in a whisper, as his lips ghosted over hers.

She sighed against his mouth, and ran her fingers through his hair, to the nape of his neck, and she knew he could feel how her hands trembled.

He kissed her again, and she could feel his hands gently sliding down her arms, caressing her. She couldn't help herself, and she blinked.

She opened her eyes, the gray room swam around her, the smell of antiseptic in the air, a tall man with glasses stood right in front of her, his hand holding a silver spike coming closer to her eye, and he pulled the hammer back…

"Doctor! STOP!" Vera Gorski's voice rang out, startling Dr. Isaacs. He pulled back from the patient, the beautiful blonde girl they called Jamie. "What is it? Can't you see I'm in the middle of the procedure?" he said impatiently. Vera walked towards him swiftly, holding the clipboard with the authorization papers, "Look! That orderly Jones has forged my signature! If she hadn't caused him to be so near death he'd never have confessed! And I would never have known about this until that poor girl was a vegetable." She shoved the clipboard in his face, and he glanced down it.

"Do you mean to tell me you didn't authorize this?" his voice was shaking, he was slightly relieved he had been stopped. The look that girl had given him, like she was begging him to do it, had shook him to his core.

He glanced back at her, she was sitting serenely in the chair, but then she looked up at him, her brown eyes piercing his grey ones,

"What's going on? Am I not sick?" she asked in a quiet voice, which held none of the courage her face had held moments ago. He shook his head quickly, "No, there's nothing wrong with you at all. Nurse! Undo those braces!" he said sharply to the idiotic looking woman to his left. She hurried forward and starting to undo the straps holding the poor girl to the chair. He turned back to Madame Gorski, "Please continue."

She nodded furiously, "That orderly was responsible for all this nonsense! He killed two other patients, girls that this one here, Jamie, had grown close too, no wonder she tried to stop him when he was bringing her here. He attacked her and tried to rape her, when she grabbed a knife and stabbed his arm. If she hadn't done that, she might be dead already. I've already called the police and they're going to put him away for a long time." She paused for breath, and he took over,

"This girl, Jamie, needs to go through some careful therapy, but there's no need for anything this drastic, and she oughtn't even be in a place like this. Honestly, with your orderlies acting the way they do, I wouldn't be surprised if any other girls had been treated for this when all it was caused by abuse."

He finished angrily, giving Vera a hard stare, and she wilted under his gaze, nodded, and left the room quickly, and the nurse followed her. Dr. Isaacs walked over to the patient, who still sat in the chair, looking rather dazed.

"Are you alright Miss? I really don't know what to say, I've seen many tortured souls in here, and always wondered if this was the right thing to do. Now I know sometimes there's more to things than meet the eye." He held out his hand to the girl, and she looked carefully at it, before taking it.

"Thank-you. I'm alright; I just had the strangest dream before. You were there, and you said I would be free. Now I guess I really will be." She said softly, before suddenly tears formed in her dark, sad eyes.

She started sobbing earnestly, and he pulled her close, holding her carefully, as though she were a fragile doll. "Everything will be alright now. You're safe."

The End?

A/N: This is my first Sucker Punch story, after reading many others I was inspired to change the ending a bit, and give Babydoll a better happy ending. Should I continue? R/R :)